


Warmth

by scifiwritergirl



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, McChekov, Team McChekov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifiwritergirl/pseuds/scifiwritergirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pavel Chekov and Leonard McCoy crash land on an alien planet, miles away from their target landing spot.  Alone and void of communication to the Enterprise, the two adventurers must survive extreme conditions with none but each other for company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first McChekov fic! (Be kind to me if it's no good!)

The doctor ran his fingers through Chekov's soft golden curls, weighing the ensign's head against his chest.  In his sleep, the boy nuzzled into the hollow of Bones' neck and placed a gentle kiss on the warm skin.  McCoy, half-conscious, contemplated how far this boy had helped him come.  He thought of his nickname and how Kirk had decided to give it to him.   _"All I got left is my bones,"_  he'd said, forever assuming he’d never again be made whole.  At that moment, he realized he was wrong… so wrong.  This boy had given him everything: hope, love, trust.  McCoy hardly understood how he could deserve it, yet this young and unassuming boy had seen the good in him, had shown him his own worth.  He returned Chekov’s sleeping gesture by kissing just below the tangled mess of curls.

_How had he done it?  How did this boy manage what no one else could?_

Stirring, the ensign’s voice was weak.  “Sir?” he asked in his think Russian accent.

“It’s okay…  I’m here.”  He held the boy tight against him, instinctively protecting him from the cold.  He nestled the thermoblanket tighter around them, fighting the freezing cold of this God forsaken  planet.  It was nearly pitch black, but Bones kept watch while the boy was asleep.  Dizzy with fatigue, McCoy’s eyes played dangerous tricks on him.  In the paranoid darkness, he thought he saw something move and reached slowly for his taser.  When the mirage faded, his muscles relaxed and he returned his focus to Pavel.

“I thought I saw something moving.  Are you okay?  Are you hurt?”

“I am fine, doctor.  I promise you.”

“Yeah, but…” McCoy tried to hide the worry in his tone, “are you _okay?_ ”  He tried to stifle his growing fear that the rescue party would never come.

A purple sunrise began to glitter on the horizon.  _Thank god,_ Bones thought.  The solar system’s blue sun was far from the planet they’d crashed on, making the daylight hours hot, but the nights brutal with cold.  The darkness had only lasted a few hours.  Any longer and the cold might have killed them both.

The mission was to be simple:  survey the planet and its plant life.  Then go home.  There were only three crew members assigned and each one had a painfully simple job.  There was an engineer to fly the shuttle, an exobotanist to collect samples of plant life, and Chekov, the navigator, to map out the terrain of the planet’s topography.  McCoy had only come in hopes of enjoying the scenery.  _Lotta good that did._

Their shuttle had gone down unexpectedly, killing the botanist and engineer.  McCoy and Chekov only survived the crash by some bittersweet stroke of luck.  Chekov’s head was bleeding profusely, but McCoy had pried him from the wreckage and done his best to heal the wounds using skin grafts from his medkit.  Now they were trapped on a dangerous planet without means of survival or communication.

A rescue party had surely been sent, but McCoy had barely the dimmest hopes of being rescued.  Shuttle systems went offline far before the crash point, and Chekov had estimated that they were approximately 400 kilometers off course at the time of impact.  Roughly 250 miles, McCoy automatically translated.

“I am fine, sir.  Just a beet sore,” promised the young boy, humoring the persistent doctor.  “And fank you for keeping me warm.”

Reverent blue eyes gazed up at Leonard, shimmering with gratitude—a stark contrast from Chekov’s pale skin and unfading bloodstains.

The sun rose sufficiently enough to light the boy’s face with blue, and McCoy remembered with a start that UV rays were more volatile in blue-starred solar systems.

“Here.  Put this on, kid,” he instructed, trying to keep his voice from shaking.  “That sun’ll fry you faster than a chicken on the fourth of July.”  Leonard McCoy forced an empty smile.  _What if he never gets to see his family again?_

“Fank you, doctor,” Chekov responded cheerfully, grinning fondly at his superfluous country-boy analogies.  “I estimate, sir, zat our best change of survival is to head to ze geographic southwest.  Zat is where we will find water most quickly and maximize our daylight hours.”

McCoy smiled sadly.  No wonder Starfleet had hired him, the bright young boy of seventeen.  He was an intellectual prodigy and a never-ending fountain of hope, too intelligent to mess around and too naïve to give up hope.  There was always a sunrise to make him smile, even after a freezing night.

The truth is that Pavel never fit in at home.  Even in Mother Russia, which he missed so dearly, he was nothing more than a wonder to his peers.   Never a friend, never an acquaintance—just a strange boy who dreamed of the stars.  It’s really no wonder he didn’t fit in on Earth.  The entire world was too small for him.  Only the universe was big enough for his dreams.

In all honesty, he was brighter than all the enlisted crew on board the _Enterprise._   He sat on the Bridge with officers and the Captain, not only because he was needed as navigator, but because it was the only place he could be among equals.  A small boy of just seventeen, finally finding a home among the stars, beside the top officers of Starfleet’s most groundbreaking mission.  It was no wonder why Dr. McCoy loved him.

“Pavel?”

“Yees, sir?”

“I love you, you fool.”

Chekov beamed a  smile that could outshine a supernova.  “And I, you, sir!  But daylight will not last long, so we must head southvest before it is too late.”

Without any amount of pomp and circumstance, Chekov rose to his feet and brushed the black-purple sand from his clothes, lending a hand to his beloved doctor.  He eagerly set off, away from the sunrise, with the medkit and folded thermoblanket slung over his shoulder.  “Judging by the planet’s rootation, we have about four and half hours before we make camp,” he called back at the doctor.

Leonard McCoy shook his head and laughed.  This boy was _impossible_ , he thought.  

And yet…  McCoy had the distinct feeling that Pavel Chekov was the only real thing he had ever known.

 

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

 

The words “red hot” flashed through Leonard McCoy’s mind, making him choke out a dry laugh in the blue-hot heat.  He longed for the sweltering heat of a Georgia summer, grudgingly recalling how he’d complain and fuss about working on his father’s garden in the heat of midafternoon.  _Well, ain’t that somethin’?_ he thought bitterly.  _I’m missin’ home a little more every day._   But at the rate this planet was spinning, ‘every day’ would pass a too quickly, and he’d probably be dead before he could miss home much more.

“Come on, doctor!” the words from ahead reminded McCoy to strive on, if not for himself, then for young, unassuming Chekov, who was some fifty feet ahead of him.

“I’m comin’.  I’m comin’,” he grumbled.  “How is it that a little weakling from Russia can cope with this heat better than a grown man from down South?”

Chekov smiled, sweat dripping down his face in bullets.  “In Russia we make our boys resilient!  We raise them to be tough and strong!  Not like zose silly farm boys from America!”  Chekov laughed and stumbled backward, losing balance from the heat and dehydration.  Leonard was at his side in an instant.

“Strong and tough, my ass.  You’re as much a pansy as I am!” he tried to laugh, but his mouth was too dry, making him stifle down a cough in the sweaty, dry heat.  He lifted two hydration capsules to Tavel’s mouth and bid him swallow.

“Pansy…” Chekov repeated, searching his understanding of English language for meaning.

“A wimp.  A weakling,” he clarified.  “You and I?  We’re a pair o’ pansy-ass weaklings right about now.”

“Nonesense,” Chekov  laughed weakly and tried to stand.  McCoy caught him as the young boy began to fall.

Dr. McCoy picked Chekov up and carried him in his arms for ten more miles, praying silently as the boy slipped in and out of consciousness.  McCoy envied his unconsciousness and his entirety ached to fall down in the coarse black sand and join the boy in sleep…  But knew that Chekov was relying on him.  He _had_ to get him through this.  He had to get him home to his family, home to Russia.  When his overheated delusions became unstoppable, he anchored himself to the memory of sitting aboard the _Enterprise_ , playing rummy with Chekov.

_“Ever been to Russia, doctor?”_

_“Nah, not really my thing.  I’m more of a  tropics kinda guy.”_

_“But, Leonard, you should go!  Zere is so much history!  So much culture!  It’s like a whole other world from vhere you’re from!”_

_“You calling me uncultured, Russian boy?”  McCoy laughed and took a card._

_“No, sir, never!  It’s just… Russia is_ so _beautiful.  You vould love it.  I’d take you to all the most beautiful countrysides and maybe…”_

_“And maybe what?”_

_“Vell…  I just mean…  Maybe you could meet my parents….  It vould be important to me….  I think they’d like you….”_

That was they day McCoy realized Chekov was special.  He’d always known the boy was one of a kind, but in a distant, objective sort of way.  That conversation was the exact moment McCoy realized he was in love with the boy… and that Chekov loved him back.  They’d already been sleeping together for some time, but it was never anything serious… at least, McCoy didn’t think it was.  Men in space get lonely all the time, and they’d have none but their crew for company.  Sometimes things just happened.  He thought it was just some fling, some way of occupying time between the endless parsecs of empty space they’d encountered, but at that moment… at that moment, the doctor knew he was in love and knew that Chekov was in love, too.

Slowly, the blue desert became spotted with sparse vegetation.  _Closer,_ McCoy drove himself.   _Just a bit further.  Water must be close._   The sun began to set just as McCoy arrived at the freshwater reservoir, turning the sky and water a delicious shade of deep purple.  McCoy set down his unconscious navigator and began cooling Chekov’s face with the water and helping him drink to recover his strength.

“Doctor,” came the feeble voice.  “We need to build a fire and shelter for ze night.  Othervise we will be too cold again.”

“I know, I know,” McCoy whispered nervously.  Chekov was starting to shiver with cold, and McCoy was shaking from malnourishment and lack of water.  “I’ll get on that right now.  You just rest.”

McCoy searched his bag for combustibles and cursed himself for being undersupplied.  After a while, he made fire using an emergency flare, sustaining it with meticulously place branches he’d found near the reservoir.  He’d gather more firewood in the morning, but for now this would have to do.  The cold quickly became too severe too quickly, and found himself shaking uncontrollably as he tried to build their makeshift fort.  The cold eliminated all feeling in his hands and he fumbled with supplies, fearing he could not built the shelter before his blood freezes solid in his veins.

As he struggled with the fort, Pavel came up behind him, wrapping the blanket around them both at once.

“Pavel, stop.  I-I- I have to make this.”  McCoy shivered hard, unable to move or speak without his confidence wavering.  “Go l-lay down.  Stay w-w-w- warm.”

“No, doctor.”  Pavel nuzzled warmly into his back.  “You need rest, _too_.”  He wrapped his arms a little tighter around McCoy and rubbed the senior officer’s arms to create friction.

The doctor turned and took Chekov’s thin body in his arms, burying his face in the mess of blonde curls.  “P-Pavel…  I need to protect you,” he pleaded.  “I have to do this.”

“Shh,” Ensign Chekov brought the doctor’s face down to his own.  “You already _have_ , doctor,” and placed a kiss gently on Dr. McCoy’s lips, slowing the unsteady tremors down to a nervous tremble within minutes.  “Zere,” he said smilingly, “now you lie down by ze fire with me.  You’re going to turn to ice.”

McCoy followed Chekov to the ground, and  Chekov wrapped the thermoblanket more tightly around his elder.  “You vait here, sir.”

He returned a moment later with a handful of hydration and nutrition tablets.  “You should be ashamed of yourself, doctor.  I thought you’d been taking zese already,” and Chekov cared for his doctor the way that McCoy had cared for him.

It was less than half an hour into night, and the lake had already frozen solid.  Chekov climbed back into the blanket and kissed McCoy on the cheek.  “You try to be invincible, but you are not, doctor.”

“For the last time, I like it better when you call me Leonard.  We’re way past first name basis.”

“Yes, doctor, but old habits die hard.  Besides, you  take such good care of me,” Chekov grinned and placed a trail of kisses from McCoy’s temple to his chin.

McCoy turned to the boy and met his lips thankfully, cherishing their warmth.  “That ain’t ever gonn’ change, kid,” he mumbled between kisses.  Chekov’s lips eagerly spread to welcome his loving partner’s tongue, and for a brief moment, McCoy forgot all about the God forsaken planet they were on.  He thought only of Chekov’s smiling eyes and soothing voice, warming his world when all hope seemed lost.

**Author's Note:**

> In my mind I have it set up for an "Explicit" rated second chapter, but I'm not sure if I'll get around to typing it? Let me know if I should, otherwise I will probably just write other things? Question mark?


End file.
